Wald, SarahPreston, Sarah2024-01-092024-01-09https://hdl.handle.net/1794/29113Brand names, advertisements, and marketing strategies fill the pages of much contemporary ethnic American literature that engages with issues of environmental justice. In Toxic Entanglements: Advertising and Material Toxicity in Environmental Justice Literature, I argue that advertising is central to the political critique of the contemporary ethnic American environmental justice novel, which I define as a contemporary novel by an Ethnic American author engaged in environmental justice critique. In particular, reading these novels' engagement with advertising showcases the “toxic entanglement” of material and cultural toxins, or racism and other oppressive forces. Further, I propose that since discursive, or cultural toxins are enmeshed with material toxins—they are mutually constitutive—disrupting one will disrupt the other. The internalization of these authors’ narratives by readers hinders the process of reinforcing culturally toxic narratives and ostensibly stems the flow of material toxins as well.The interdisciplinary nature of this project brings together the sub-fields of environmental justice cultural studies and critical advertising studies. In Toxic Entanglements, I examine the short stories and well-known contemporary ethnic American novels of Helena María Viramontes, Thomas King, and Ruth Ozeki. Their works exemplify the sharp political critiques being made in creative fiction as they engage with environmental themes and advertising. This project reveals all aspects of advertising as constituting critical components in a web of toxic entanglements that serve to perpetuate the material toxins with which they are entangled. It insists that the fight for environmental justice is not just material; it is discursive as well.en-USAll Rights Reserved.Environmental Justice Cultural StudiesEthnic American LiteratureHelena María ViramontesRuth OzekiThomas KingToxic EntanglementsElectronic Thesis or Dissertation